Abject Vindication
by EliteSky
Summary: Waiting silently in the wings, she watched as Lightning slowly changed. Or did she?


She watched from the shadows. Always. Out of sight, unintrusively. What was she looking for? For the faintest shift of nuance, a slight inflection of the tone, a sliver of a crack in the porcelain façade? Did she dare hope for the slight slump of defeat of those fragile shoulders, or did she secretly wish for those invisible wings to materialize, grow stronger, and take flight?

Conflict reigned within her, as she watched like a hawk over her charge. She wanted something, yearned foolishly for it. The darkness ate at her, burning slowly inside out. She couldn't name it, this strange desire. She loathed it. She reveled in it.

Change. Yes, a change. Anything but the status quo now. If only the ex-soldier wasn't so rigid, so stubborn. So _damn constant._ Strength laid in consistency. And try as she might, she couldn't find a chink in that armor of defense. She saw; no one had even come close to her inner world. And it wasn't for the lack of trying. They were all deceived - thinking her lack of hostility was a sign that she was relenting, that she was weakening. That she cared.

Lightning Farron. The ex-sergeant came across as cold and callous. Her sapphire blue eyes flashed only with barely concealed anger, a hint of the controlled violence she was capable of. Her wintry charisma would slowly numb you, freeze your awareness, only to cause you excruciating pain when the situation called for it. There was no hesitation in her cruel, decisive, _deliberate_ course of action. She was a soldier; trained as a killer, a tool. To destroy or to protect, it didn't matter. There was only an objective to fulfill, an obligation to discharge.

When they were all thrown helplessly into the web of deceits that the Fal'Cies had weaved, she thought that perhaps Lightning would become different. She had unleashed her wrath, wreaked vengeance on those responsible for her plight. Hers and the rest of her "family". She had experienced loss, regret, _concern_, on their journey together. Her sister was trapped in crystal stasis; Lightning herself was undergoing a metamorphosis. Her icy demeanor transformed; her silence meant that she was listening but had nothing to say; and not tinged with that judging disapproval or with that impatient disinterest. To the utter surprise of her companions, she learnt to appreciate their efforts, that she couldn't go it alone.

_Thank you._ Two simple words to convey her thoughts on how they had accepted her.

_Sorry._ The universal truth that she was wrong, and the heavy weight of atonement that laid behind this difficult confession.

All these did not escape her silent observation. And she continued to watch, with a strange fluttering inside, something akin to _hope_.

Underlying that hope, was the knowledge that Lightning wasn't her real nature. It was a persona, her personal cocoon to keep her afloat. After her parents had ceased to exist, and there was no purpose left in this world except for Serah.

Every day after that was a lie.

Every day after that, she died.

Memory became faded. Who was Lightning before all of this? Did she go by any other name? Was she the sunshine girl, standing with her arms outstretched and laughing in the wind, her cornflower blue eyes twinkling and her rose coloured hair dancing with abandon? Did she dream of a happier life, content in mundaneness and safe in undisputable love?

She rose from her musings. Perhaps her long awaited opportunity had come. Her time for liberation. That she no longer stood sentinel, and she could finally meld into Lightning and become one.

Lightning seemed to sense her approach. She paused in her writing, one of her many regular letters to Serah after she had married Snow and moved out.

Putting her pen down gently, she placed both hands on her lap and looked up, the vision of poise and grace.

"I was wondering when you might show up." She said, almost affectionately.

"When you are ready to let me in."

Lightning stood up, her palms opened outwards.

"You kept yourself away, when you didn't need to. Have I ever hurt you?"

"No, you queried my motives. I have none."

"Yet you have feelings for me. And you couldn't keep away."

"I couldn't read you. You seemed to have changed. Yet you're still the same."

Lightning laughed.

"What did you hope for, by coming here? Did you think that I became less cold, it means that you can understand me? Did you think that I was polite, and therefore I am _nice_? Once more?"

"I think this was a big mistake."

Lightning took a step towards the mirror, her breath frosting the glass as she continued to smile. That _damn _consistent smile. The one that failed to reach her eyes. So close, she finally saw it. Too late, she realized her oversight.

_Strength laid in consistency._

Hope deflated and in its place, abject despair and disillusionment. _It cannot be._ Nothing changed. Nothing could have changed.

"There is nothing more to me. I am what you see. I am, simply how others needed me to be. I love, whoever needed me the most. I cannot be, anything else because there is nothing. I am but an image, created out of other people's expectations."

She shook her head in denial, in defeat, she no longer knew. She knew this was a possibility, but she did not want to believe. She now fervently wished for things to go back to the way they were before. Before everything. The Fal'Cie, the L'Cie, Serah, the Guardian Corps, her parents' death.

Reading her thoughts, Lightning kept her smile.

"You know, it won't make a difference. Even if my parents hadn't died, and I had grown up with Serah - _happy_, the outcome would have been the same. I would have picked a safe nine-to-five job to feed the family. I would continue to become what they expect of me. I would be _nice_, if only to keep people away at an arm's length. No one can come into my inner world, for none existed. Why can't you accept, that there was nothing more in the first place?"

Dismissing her presence, Lightning turned away.

"Claire Farron, you never existed. So rest in peace."


End file.
